“Memory, in short, is engraved not merely by the life we have led but by the life of the mind…by all the lives we so nearly led but missed by an inch, and—if we grant enough leeway to the imagination—by the lives of others, which can cut into ours every bit as sharply as our own experience.” – Anthony Lane, writing about W.G. Sebald in The New Yorker (May 29, 2000)
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Tag Archives: post-traumatic stress disorder
Of secrets, silence, and despair—veteran suicides, Russian teens, the power of the novel
I’ve had my head in the sand as much as possible this month, a rather nice (and terribly necessary) place to be as a writer. But emerging for air—or simply to attend to surrounding noise—tends to create something akin to … Continue reading
Addendum: War, suicide, aggression—hope (a gay politician, a veteran, and a president)
When I finally saw the film Milk earlier this summer, afterwards my thoughts kept returning to the stress placed on hope in the story, seemingly in a starkly different context from that of Iraq war veteran Brad Eifert (see my … Continue reading
War, suicide, aggression—hope
In the autumn of 1992, having just returned from a semester in Moscow, I enrolled in my senior seminar, where I had the good fortune to study with Lawrence Weschler, then a staff writer with The New Yorker. Almost twenty … Continue reading
Hollywood and the army base, and bipolar realities
On the one hand, we have Catherine Zeta-Jones checking into an exclusive mental-health facility, diagnosed with bipolar II disorder within five days, and less than a month after that adorning the cover of People magazine. On the other, we find … Continue reading
Posted in Memory, Suicide, War, Writing & Reading
Tagged Andrew Solomon, army wives, bipolar disorder, Catherine Zeta-Jones, depression, Jennifer Egan, Jessica Harp, Kay Redfield Jamison, memory, military, post-traumatic stress disorder, reading, Styron, suicide attempt, suicide notes, The Noonday Demon
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What Cynthia Ozick said to me—and a few other things
So, the hours I was supposed to spend yesterday morning revising yesterday’s (that is today’s) blog post, I ended up passing at the Hospital for Joint Diseases. No, nothing serious. At least that’s how I prefer to think about loss … Continue reading
Posted in Memory, Suicide, War, Writing & Reading
Tagged Cynthia Ozick, memory, National Arts Club, post-traumatic stress disorder, reading, suicide, ulnar nerve, VIDA, women writers, World War II, writing
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Kara Krauze 